Fixing Every Healer Job

[Shurrikhan]

Perhaps I should have specified how Repertoire used to work and not so much its current iteration to clear up that confusion. I haven't played BRD much this expansion so forgive my ignorance on the changes that made it no longer DoT reliant.

Ahh, that makes more sense.

Just bear with me as it's far from being complete given that SCH has a vast array of gameplay elements to it, from the pet, to Aetherflow, to Energy Drain, etc. that I needed to consider...

Oh, no worries. I mean, it's taken a team of... well, too few but nonetheless multiple people almost a decade to arrive at a product nonetheless inferior to what you're hoping to create on your own.

It wouldn't build up the Fairy Gauge and is merely a means of refunding the DPS lost from missing a Broil cast but with the added benefit of Broil granting Fairy Gauge, would that be enough?

I mean, maybe? I'm probably a bit more against anything advantaging Broil spam than some others would be, but in this case, Broil would still be building free oGCD heals, not GCDs like, so... I'm not seeing the connection.

Imagine if it were the opposite, for instance -- whereby MP spent (which naturally more affects healing than our very MP-efficient attacks) would build Aetherpool, which then enhances the damage and MP you can restore via Energy Drain. Now you'd have, atop the damage-reflection, further ways of reducing the punishment for GCD healing, allowing them slightly more use cases for GCD healing + ED over Broil + Lustrate/Indom, etc -- instead of further Broil-spam advantage.

Now, given that you'd then be making Energy Drain and increasingly lucrative ability over MP expenditure, you may want to add a bit more Aetherflow to play with, such as by returning Quickened Aetherflow or just granting an extra AF stack per CD (essentially, one per 15s, up from one per 20 or QA's at best one-per-15). I could hammer out a polish for QA if you specifically want to return it and its margining play (really, just punishment for using AF skills in the last n seconds of AF's cooldown).

I don't want to pull a Toxicon when Addlo breaks but making Ruin 2 turn into Ruination that matches the potency of Broil but offers 10 gauge instead of 5 when Addlo breaks is an option I've been considering.

Understandable; we want jobs to feel distinct. Out of curiosity, would the 5-second spitball above (Aetherpool) be sufficiently distinct, or would the MP Spending->Energy Drain buff interaction feel too similar, still, to Toxicon, in your opinion?

Aetherflow: I am honestly completely stumped here.

Same, tbh. Half my mind says "it's fine," and half is shouting at me that it could result in far better. So much of the existing system seems dependent on a need to balance burst with sustain, both in terms of damage and healing, but with oGCD healing being capable of all one's sustain needs and no mainstay content requiring that oGCDs be saved for burst atop GCD healing... it feels a little destined to fall well short of its potential.

I imagine Aetherflow's (and its spenders') more ideal context would look something more like this:

• There's way more damage relative to mostly-free healer output. This is the basic requirement, though obviously adjustments would have to be made both to (A) not overly increase the minimum skill required to avoid wipes in typical content, and (B) deal with the increased MP requirements.
  
  
• Abilities have MP costs. No, really; I've no idea why the devs decided that MP costs on abilities should only ever be a thing for Dark Knight. By allowing abilities to have relatively high MP costs, similar to the increase in cost in going from Cure I to Cure II (since they offer at least that difference in potency in a given GCD), though not necessarily at uniform efficiencies across all abilities of a given kit, we can at least have a bit of that burst vs. sustain balance available here, rather than oGCDs being the default solution not just for timely burst, but --in typical content-- for sustained healing, too.
  
  
• AoE heals are turned into smart-heals but have lower maximum effective potency. This allows a greater place for spot-healing and for single-target spenders not to become useless on all but tanks and targeted-mechanics victims, which in turn increases interplay between shared resource options, including GCD heals themselves.

Fairies

So Selene remains heal/shield-only (no offensive buffs nor utility anymore), with Eos simply offering a bit more urgent recovery and Selene offering further mitigation. I'm a tiny bit torn on not bringing back SCH's ability thereby to flex with the situation (especially if, say, we could make pet-swaps conditionally oGCD), but I can see how the Dawn/Moon pairing would play out that way. Looks solid.

Aetherpact costs 50 gauge and summons your unused fairy to the target to provide healing for 15s. This way you can use your other fairy skills without needing to worry about the tether turning off.
Seraph costs 50 gauge but Angel's Whisper, Consolation and Seraph Illumination can be cast without cost.

Smart fix on the first, though you could also just change Aetherpact from a cast to an applied aura, absence any cast-locks. That'd then also allow you more granular control over the skill, such as by draining 5 gauge per second to rapidly heal (Eos) or cumulatively shield (Selene) a target, etc.

Seraph's up-front cost seems more attractive than individual costs, short of perhaps borrowing the old Inner Release design of reducing gauge costs by X% for Y seconds, but to briefly repeat an earlier warning... One choice being far more gauge-efficient than the others, so long as it can be maneuvered not to hugely overheal, will not add to decisions, only to constraints (i.e., lesser skills becoming non-options as you near Selene's). Constraints can feel good --in this case, in widening the gameplay impact of Seraph's CD so that its CD feels more real, big, palpable, significant, or what have you-- but it should be carefully considered.

Or, put more simply: Do you really want the punishment for overspending prior to Seraph to be a desynced Seraph, or might it be better to soften the blow slightly, such as by having Seraph's forms of each gauge spender costing less gauge (but that efficiency of course being less exploitable if you enter at less than full gauge / enough gauge to use each ability)?

I'd also repeat that there's zero need for every AoE spender to have a significant CD unless you want to deliberately want to force single-target spending (via Aetherpact). You also don't want overflow issues to be dealt with only upon acquiring Seraph. I'd therefore just put a 2s, 5s, or 10s CD on Fey Blessing.